40 Pounds Lighter, I’m Ready To Run First Race In 28 Years

Forty pounds of me floats above a lakeside trail in my hometown of Traverse City, Mich. That’s how much I lost over the summer by following a simple plan: Eat less and exercise more.

Running along the Lake Michigan shoreline, and along winding trails at nearby Boardman Lake, I counted off the miles and counted down the pounds.

What happened was this: When I hit 211 pounds last spring — and my doctor wrote “obese” in his little book — that was when I decided things had gotten out of hand. I had never considered myself a fat person, but that was happening.

So, something clicked in my head and I began to run. And run. And run. Not only that, but I cut sugar out of my diet and as much processed foods as possible. I discovered that carrots and apples do, indeed, carry the same satisfying crunch as a potato chip.

A couple of days ago, I proudly hit 171 pounds. That’s 40 pounds of meat I no longer schlep around. To “celebrate” I decided that I would spend my 47th birthday Oct. 7 running roughly 13.2 miles in peak color season on the Leelanau Peninsula of Michigan (the “pinkie” of the mitten). I decided that maybe it was too soon to do a full marathon — the last marathon I ran was in Detroit back in 1984 — so I’m going to run the Sleeping Bear Half Marathon.

The scenery should be beautiful, since this area was voted the “Most Beautiful Place in America” by Good Morning America viewers last year (I wrote about that here and here).

As I get ready to run my first race since I was 21 years old, and continue my quest to live lighter and healthier, I’ll post updates on this blog.